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The Language of Bees

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Novel by Laurie R. King This article is about the novel by Laurie R. King. For the communication system of bees, see Bee learning and communication.
The Language of Bees
First edition (US)
AuthorLaurie R. King
LanguageEnglish
SeriesMary Russell
GenreDetective fiction
PublisherBantam Books (US)
Allison & Busby (UK)
Publication date2009
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardback)
ISBN0-553-80454-5
Preceded byLocked Rooms 
Followed byThe God of the Hive 

The Language of Bees is a 2009 mystery novel by American author Laurie R. King. Ninth in King's Mary Russell series, the story features detectives Mary Russell and her husband Sherlock Holmes. The events of the novel follow soon after those found in King's preceding novel, Locked Rooms.

Plot summary

Russell and Holmes return to their home in Sussex, England, in 1924 after seven months abroad in India, Japan and California. The novel features a domestic mystery as a hive on Holmes's farm has been repeatedly swarming and a colony of bees is found to have disappeared. Action shifts, however, with the reappearance of Damian Adler, a talented young painter and emotionally disturbed veteran of World War I, first introduced in the second book in the series. Adler is Holmes' estranged son, born to Irene Adler in about 1895. The distraught Adler seeks the couple's help in locating his missing wife Yolanda and their daughter Estelle.

Russell and Holmes separate during the investigation and Russell searches out Damian's questionable past. The search involves the British practitioners of a religious cult called The Children of Lights with roots in Shanghai, China, and features locations ranging from Bohemian London to the wilds of Scotland. Russell experiences a harrowing trip by aeroplane. A series of bodies appears, some dead by suicide and others ritually sacrificed. While the climax of the novel, in an ancient circle of standing stones in Orkney, brings some plot resolution, the story continues in The God of the Hive (2010).

References

  1. "The Language of Bees: A Mary Russell Novel by Laurie R. King". Publishers Weekly. 9 March 2009. Retrieved 2024-02-19.

External links

Works by Laurie R. King
Kate Martinelli
Mary Russell
Stuyvesant and Grey
Other novels
Literary pastiches of Sherlock Holmes
The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes
by Adrian Conan Doyle
and John Dickson Carr
by Nicholas Meyer
by Loren D. Estleman
by Michael Hardwick
by David Stuart Davies
by Barrie Roberts
Mary Russell series
by Laurie R. King
by Donald Serrell Thomas
  • The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes (1997)
  • Sherlock Holmes and the Running Noose (2001)
  • The Execution of Sherlock Holmes (2007)
  • Sherlock Holmes and the King's Evil (2009)
  • Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly (2010)
  • The Lost Casebooks of Sherlock Holmes (2012)
  • Death on a Pale Horse: Sherlock Holmes on Her Majesty's Secret Service (2013)
by Lyndsay Faye
Young Sherlock Holmes
by Andy Lane
by Guy Adams
by Anthony Horowitz
by Kim Newman
by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
and Anna Waterhouse
by James Lovegrove
by Cavan Scott
  • Sherlock Holmes: The Patchwork Devil (2016)
  • Sherlock Holmes: Cry of the Innocents (2017)
The Lady Sherlock Series
by Sherry Thomas
  • A Study in Scarlet Women (2016)
  • A Conspiracy in Belgravia (2017)
  • The Hollow of Fear (2018)
  • The Art of Theft (2019)
  • Murder on Cold Street (2020)
  • Miss Moriarty, I Presume? (2021)
  • A Tempest at Sea (2023)
  • A Ruse of Shadows (2024)
Sherlock Holmes in Minnesota
by Larry Millett
  • Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon (1996)
  • Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders (1998)
  • Sherlock Holmes and the Rune Stone Mystery (1999)
  • Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Alliance (2001)
  • The Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes (2012)
  • Sherlock Holmes and the Eisendorf Enigma (2017)
Other works
Novels
Short stories
Novel series
Parody


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